Benjamin Black - Even the Dead

“It would be a big step, going to Israel,” she said. “Would you — would you stay, if you did go?”

“Oh, yes. I’d have to stay. Otherwise it would be — I don’t know. Frivolous.”

“That’s a strange word to use.”

“Is it?”

He took a sip from his pint.

“You have a cream mustache,” Phoebe said.

He wiped away the froth with his fingers. They were both smiling. Soon David’s smile faded, however, and he turned his face away from her again.

“That’s the point about Israel,” he said. “It’s a serious project. You can’t just drift in and then drift out again. It requires commitment.”

“Yes,” Phoebe said. “Commitment. I understand.”

“Do you?” He still wasn’t looking at her.

“I think I do.” She paused. “Do you think I’m frivolous?”

She had asked it without rancor, as a real question, and he pondered it as such.

“No, I don’t,” he said. “The word wouldn’t apply to you. Your place is here, your people are here. This is your project, for better or worse. This girl Lisa Smith: she asks you for help and you help her. You wouldn’t dream of not doing it. But the people who need my help are far away.”

“Do you feel that, always? I mean, do you feel guilty, being here, and not there?”

“Guilty? No. But — I don’t know. Dissatisfied, maybe. No, that’s not the word either. Unfulfilled? It sounds ridiculous, I know.”

“It doesn’t.”

He reached across and laid a hand over hers.

“You’re very kind, Phoebe,” he said. “You’re a kind person, do you know that?”

She laughed. “Kind? Maybe I am, I don’t know. It doesn’t make me sound very exciting, though, does it. Not like the people on the kibbutz. I imagine being kind doesn’t arise there. It would be all work, and duty, and commitment. All those stern things.”

His fingers closed tightly around hers.

“You know I couldn’t ask you to come with me,” he said.

“Couldn’t you?” Her voice had a tiny crack in it. “Why not?”

“You know it wouldn’t work.”

“Because I’m not Jewish? Or because I’m too kind and wishy-washy? Because I’m not stern enough?”

She drew her hand slowly from under his.

“I’m sorry,” he said, so softly she almost didn’t hear.

She blew her nose into his handkerchief again. “ I’m sorry,” she said, laughing. “I’ve ruined your hankie!”

“Phoebe,” he said.

She shook her head, her lips pressed tight, and got down from the stool. She wasn’t looking at him; she couldn’t look at him. “I must go,” she said. “I’ll keep your handkerchief. I’ll wash it for you. It’ll be a reason for us to meet again.”

He reached out and tried to take her hand. She pretended not to notice, and began to move away, clutching her handbag against her stomach. She felt as if she might be sick.

“Don’t go,” David said, pleadingly. “Not like this.”

She turned to him, suddenly angry. “How, then? How do you want me to go?”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, you do, David,” she said, her voice slowing. “You do.”

And she walked away quickly, her head down.

The sun was gone from the sky, but the streets were still hot and the atmosphere itself seemed weary after the long day of heat. Hackett walked the few dozen yards from his office to Mooney’s, across the road, and by the time he got there he was in a sweat. When he took his hat off he thought his head must surely be steaming. He mopped his forehead. The back of his neck felt gritty. The weather would have to break soon; if it didn’t, there would be riots.

Inside the pub it was a little cooler than in the streets, but only a little. He nodded to the barman and slipped into the dark brown snug. All afternoon he’d been looking forward to this moment. He ordered a pint of Smithwick’s and downed a third of it in the first swallow. This beer, too, had a washed, soapy texture, but it had more body than Bass. He leaned back on the dusty plush of the bench seat and lit a cigarette. For the next few minutes he was going to relax. Years of police work had taught him to divide his mind into a number of more or less sealed compartments, so that he could shut away for necessary periods the things he didn’t want to think about.

He was considering ordering a second pint when Quirke arrived. He sat down and put his straw hat on the table.

“What will you have?” Hackett asked.

“I don’t know. What do you drink in this heat?”

“Something cool and refreshing, like the adverts say.”

“I’ll have a tonic water with ice and lemon.”

Hackett smiled. “Are you still off the hard liquor?”

“Most of the time.”

He went to the bar and rapped on it with a coin, and after a minute the barman came and glanced around the partition. Hackett ordered the tonic water for Quirke and another pint for himself, then sat down again.

“I shouldn’t be drinking this stuff,” he said, gazing gloomily at the puddle of suds in the bottom of his glass. “It gives me heartburn.” He studied Quirke. “You’re in good spirits,” he said.

“Am I?”

“You have the look of a man that’s had a spring put in his step. Did you win the football pools?”

Quirke smiled. “What have you to tell me?” he said.

The barman appeared again, and Hackett got up to take the drinks from him and handed over a ten-shilling note. Receiving his change, he returned to his seat. Above the hat line his high forehead was moistly pink.

“I went to see a fellow yesterday that I know,” he said. “In the Civil Service. One of the head bottle washers there.”

“Oh, yes?” Quirke was lighting a cigarette. “What did you go to see him about?”

“To ask him to do a bit of checking on young Corless.”

“And?”

Hackett leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette, rotating it slowly back and forth in the bottom of the ashtray. He was not a man to be hurried. “Oh, that reminds me, by the way,” he said. “I got the full report back from the boys in forensics.”

“And what did they find?”

Hackett made a contemptuous face. “Bugger all, as usual. They’re a useless shower, so they are. They think Corless’s car might have been pushed rather than driven from the road onto the grass slope, they think it might have had petrol poured over it and set alight, they think there were traces of footprints in the grass but they couldn’t be sure since the Fire Brigade had tramped all over the place in their ten-league boots. Et cetera, et cetera.” If he hadn’t been indoors, he would have spat. “Useless — worse than useless.”

“As a matter of fact, I have some news for you,” Quirke said.

“I hope it’s good,” Hackett replied dourly.

Quirke took out his wallet. “This was delivered to Phoebe in a parcel of laundry.” He unfolded Lisa Smith’s note and laid it on the table. Hackett picked it up and read it, moving his lips silently. Then he put it down on the table again, nodding.

“The Mother of Mercy Laundry rears its ugly head again,” he said.

“I’ve arranged for someone to go up there and make inquiries.”

Hackett looked at him in surprise. “Who?”

“Maisie Coughlan — do you remember her?”

“Maisie that’s working for Dr. Griffin now? Oh, aye, I remember her. I didn’t think she’d be up to setting foot in that place ever again.”

“She took a bit of persuading, all right.”

“How’s she going to manage to get in? That place is like Fort Knox.”

“There’s a nun that she knows there, a decent one, she says, who was nice to her. She’s going to pay her a visit and find out about Lisa Smith. And if she is there, which she must be, I’m going to go up and see about getting her out.”